The Evolutionary Tree Failed But Evolutionists Still Insist Evolution is a Fact

The fundamental thesis of evolution is that the species evolved according to the evolutionary tree. Students learn about the evolutionary tree in biology class and biologists use the evolutionary tree in their research. But in fact the evolutionary tree is based on a limited, and carefully selected, set of observations. Ever since Darwin, science has continued to document exceptions and anomalies—species that don’t fit neatly into the evolutionary pattern. These biological contradictions come in various forms and are found throughout the tree. For instance, species that in many regards appear to be quite similar, which evolutionists have placed on neighboring twigs of the evolutionary tree, are routinely found to have profound differences. On the other hand, species that are obviously quite different, which evolutionists have placed on distant limbs of the evolutionary tree, are often found to have profound similarities. And these various differences and similarities are found in every imaginable aspect of the species designs, ranging from the visible features of the adult form to the developing embryonic form to the underlying cellular and molecular structures. At this point, such cases are no longer exceptions and anomalies. For years evolutionists attempted to explain this growing list of contradictions using their evolutionary tree model. But it is obvious that this was an exercise in forcing the evidence to fit the theory rather than the other way around. The inexorable march of science has taken its toll and in recent years evolutionists have finally begun to deemphasize their iconic evolutionary tree model. What this does not change, however, is their insistence that evolution is a fact.

While the failure of the evolutionary tree model can be seen in data even as far back as the nineteenth century, such contradictions were generally discussed only in the highly technical scientific journals. Textbooks held to evolutionary orthodoxy and journalists dutifully reported that evolution was a scientific fact. Even today students are taught that the species fall into the expected tree pattern. But some venturesome writers are beginning to mention this unmentionable. A few years ago, for instance, the Telegraph reported that “Charles Darwin's tree of life is ‘wrong and misleading’, claim scientists.” The article reported:

They believe the concept misleads us because his [Darwin’s] theory limits and even obscures the study of organisms and their ancestries. …

Researchers say although for much of the past 150 years biology has largely concerned itself with filling in the details of the tree it is now obsolete and needs to be discarded. …

“For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life. We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality.” …

More fundamentally recent research suggests the evolution of animals and plants isn't exactly tree-like either. …

Dr Rose said: "The tree of life is being politely buried – we all know that. What's less accepted is our whole fundamental view of biology needs to change." He says biology is vastly more complex than we thought and facing up to this complexity will be as scary as the conceptual upheavals physicists had to take on board in the early 20th century.

All of this was important not because it was reporting on any new scientific findings, but rather that a fundamental failure of evolutionary theory was being reported, period. Contrary evidence was being openly discussed.

But of course none of this was allowed to cast any doubt on evolutionary theory itself. As the article reported:

"If you don't have a tree of life what does it mean for evolutionary biology. At first it's very scary – but in the past couple of years people have begun to free their minds." Both he and co-researcher Dr Ford Doolittle stressed that downgrading the tree of life doesn't mean the theory of evolution is wrong just that evolution is not as tidy as we would like to believe.

It is yet another example of how well protected evolution is from the scientific evidence. The tree of life is just one of many failures of evolutionary theory. Over and over the theory fails to elucidate the science, but rather must be repeatedly modified and augmented to try to fit the data. At some point the theory becomes little more than a tautology. Whatever we discover in biology, evolution must have created it, no matter how contradictory and unlikely. The real story here is not that another prediction of evolution has failed, the real story is that evolution is protected from such failures.